


The Winchester House

by AceMistakes



Category: Mystery Skulls Animated
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Mentions of Blood, Non-Graphic Violence, hurt Arthur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-01 20:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16772836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceMistakes/pseuds/AceMistakes
Summary: A fic in which Arthur saves the day, in a way, and the title totally gives away where they are.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fic i'm posting here so I have no clue what I'm doing. :,)
> 
> This was originally posted on my Tumblr, but I decided to post it here too.

Vivi had found a new location based off of a Youtube series that Arthur had forgotten the name of. All he knew was that they were headed to a place called the Winchester Mystery House. It was 6 acres of land and the house was filled with lots of hallways, stairs, rooms, and doorways to nothing. The worst part, in Arthur’s opinion, was that the house was supposed to be one of the most haunted houses in America. **  
**

When they got to the house, Vivi insisted that they split up and that Lewis should go with Arthur, thinking that it would help mend things in their relationship. Lewis didn’t seem very happy about this plan and Arthur was terrified as he recalled what happened the last time they were paired like this. While he knew that Vivi had good intentions, she seemed to overlook the fact that, not even a few months ago, Lewis was out to kill him for revenge. Vivi refused to switch partners so with a sigh, both boys turned to begin their search of the second floor of the massive house.

The manor was….creepy to put it simply. Lewis seemed undisturbed by the aura of the place while Arthur, on the other hand was visibly shaken. He continued to look from one side of the hallway to the other, through the many doorways that lined the walls, glancing over his shoulder every so often. He trembled and curled into himself as much as he could while standing. Occasionally, he looked at Lewis with a sort of longing in his eyes, although no matter how much he wanted to run forward to cling to the other man, he refrained.

Arthur jumped and ran forward to walk next to Lewis when he heard the sudden slamming of the door. He patted himself on the back for not grabbing onto Lewis but cursed himself for closing the distance between them in the first place. Arthur looked sheepishly up at Lewis and found the other man staring down at him, his black and purple glowing eyes void of emotion. The tension in the air only seemed to grow as they continued to walk. Arthur fell back a bit to give Lewis that extra space but kept a closer distance than before.

Arthur continued to frantically look around as they walked. So far the only evidence of the place being haunted was the door closing on its own which was a bit of comfort to Arthur. Although that small bit of hope and comfort quickly faded when the sound of footsteps was heard from behind him. What made it worse was the fact that the footsteps were drawing closer very quickly. Arthur picked up his own pace and quickly looked behind him. There was nothing behind him and the sound of footsteps faded. With that, he slowed his pace. Unfortunately Arthur realized that he was once again walking next to Lewis.

“Hey-“ Arthur’s words caught in his throat, “Hey Lewis? Did…did you hear those foot-“ he paused, glancing behind nervously, lowering his voice, “those footsteps?”

“No Arthur. I didn’t hear any footsteps.” Lewis replied coldly.

“Did you hear-“ he paused, “Did you hear the door slamming…shut earlier?”

“Yes.”

That was a bit of comfort for Arthur. At least someone else heard the door, though he was still unnerved by the footsteps. He just had to remind himself that there weren’t actually footsteps. Arthur took a deep breath and stayed silent for the rest of the walk as they came to a more open space. The two stopped once in the area to look around. There was a staircase that lead to nothing, as well as a few doors. One of the doors had a warning sign nailed to it. Arthur could only guess that it lead to a sudden drop.

Arthur tensed as the door with the warning sign suddenly opened. He could see that, _yes it did lead to a sudden drop_. Lewis had turned to look where Arthur was staring when the door first connected with the wall. Arthur could tell that Lewis was as shaken as he was, although he didn’t doubt that Lewis was likely more shaken because of what happened _that day_.

Arthur whimpered and stepped closer to Lewis when a sudden, cold laugh rang out through the room. The sound of footsteps returned, quickly approaching from the left. They both turned to look down the hallway to see _someone_ almost running towards them with a haunting grin on their face. Their body wasn’t very clear but Arthur could see that the person was a tall male with long hair drawn back into a ponytail, their clothes were shredded and he could see several bullet wounds in their chest.

With a sudden start Arthur realized that the ghost was headed straight towards Lewis and that Lewis was right between the quickly advancing male and the, _now open_ , door that lead to nothingness. When he realized this, the ghost was _right there_. He only had a split second to make his decision. There was no time to scream a warning, so he was left to act. Arthur quickly turned to shove Lewis out of the way of the ghost and he instead stumbled into the ghost’s path. The ghost didn’t seem to care that he was aiming for a different person. He dragged Arthur towards the door and then shoved him out before disappearing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear lord, I owe my friend my life for helping me with this chapter. She helped me with ideas, research, and being a beta for this fic. 
> 
> Sorry this took a little while. I wanted to make sure everything made sense and it actually turned out a lot longer then I thought.

Lewis was confused. Arthur had shoved him away from the path of a fast-approaching ghost and taken the fall. He’d thought that Arthur had killed him out of jealousy. But Arthur had just jumped into the danger for Lewis even though Lewis was dead and couldn’t get that hurt by the fall. He had been terrified of the potential drop though….too afraid because of what happened that night. It obviously wasn’t a far drop but that fear of falling was prominent after his death. Had Arthur known? Was that why he stepped in?

With a start Lewis completely remembered the situation. He was in a haunted house that was huge and had proven to be very dangerous. Arthur had pushed him out of danger… Arthur had -

_Arthur was gone._ Lewis quickly stood up from where he had fallen against a far wall from the force of the push. He had been _pushed with Arthur’s left hand, like that night._ He couldn’t find a trace of the ghost, and couldn’t bring himself to look over the edge where Arthur disappeared. Instead Lewis sank threw the floor and wall to where Arthur lay on the ground. He wanted answers, and the fall didn’t seem long enough to cause much damage.

_He was wrong._

When Lewis was outside he saw Arthur curled up on the ground. At a glance he looked fine, but the longer Lewis looked at him, the more damage he saw. Arthur’s metal arm was limp, outstretched beside his body. It was sparking from the broken wires that shown through various cracks and holes in the metal. His pants were torn in many places and there were slowly growing blood stains in some places. His flesh arm was clutching at his left hip, and once more Lewis saw various blood stains on the white of his shirt. His eyes were squeezed shut and Arthur was trembling slightly. Lewis could see the bruises starting to form on his face and there was blood slowly pooling around his head. He could hear the quiet, strained sobs and whimpers coming from his prone form.

“Arthur!” Lewis had jumped slightly when he heard the sudden shout. He turned to find Vivi running towards them with Mystery hot on her heels. Neither spared him a glance as they both ran straight to Arthur’s side. Vivi dropped to her knees next to him.

“What happened? Oh god, are you okay?” Vivi asked as she reached towards him, hesitating slightly.

Arthur opened his eyes and looked up at Vivi. He offered a weak, pain filled smile in an attempt to comfort her. He shifted slightly but immediately froze with a pained hiss. Lewis and Vivi both tensed as he did so and Lewis went to take a step toward Arthur. Although before he could, there was a flash of red before Mystery was standing between him and Arthur, effectively shielding him from Lewis’s sight.

“ **What did you do?!”** was growled out from the now large six-tailed fox in front of Lewis.

“ _I_ didn’t do anything. Arthur was the one to shove me aside! So let me talk to him because I need answers!” Lewis defended.

**“I will not allow you to speak with him. Now explain!”**

Any anger that Lewis might have felt at the moment was gone, replaced by confusion and frustration. He went to go try and explain, but his voice had seemed to fail him. In that moment of silence Lewis could hear Vivi and Arthur talking and forgot about Mystery as he listened to the conversation.

“...it hurt?” He could recognize that as Vivi’s voice.

“...my..” there a pause as another hiss of pain was heard, “my hip and...and my back” was Arthur’s shakey reply.

“Upper or Lower?”

“Low..” a whimper, “Lower”

**“Lewis”** The man addressed was brought back to the situation between him and Mystery at the growled warning.

“It was a ghost in the house. It was coming towards me, and Arthur shoved me away and went into its path. The thing dragged him towards an open door and threw him out of it. The doorway lead to a straight drop. I just came out here for answers.” Lewis explained almost monotone.

“Mystery, leave Lewis alone. Arthur needs to get to a hospital.” Vivi called out after Lewis had explained. Mystery had turned towards the pair and Lewis could see his ears flatten against his head at the sight. Mystery nodded his head and shrunk back to his normal dog form and trotted over to the pair. With Mystery out of the way, Lewis could see that Vivi was holding Arthur’s flesh hand with one hand and the other was behind his neck, holding his head up. It looked as if she had been inspecting the cut on his head.

Lewis watched as Vivi slowly lowered Arthur’s head to the ground before grabbing her phone out of her skirt pocket. He watched in silence as she called 911 and gave them everything they needed to know. He watched as she put the phone away and reassured Arthur and made sure he stayed awake. As much as Lewis wanted to help, he seemed frozen. Explaining what happened to Mystery made him remember that Arthur had _tried to_ _save him._ He couldn’t seem to wrap his head around that idea.

“Lewis,” a gentle voice called, breaking Lewis out of his daze. It was Vivi. “Lewis, you’re clearly not in the right state of mind right now. Even with your human disguise, you can’t come in the ambulance with us. Just..please go home and think things over? You can visit tomorrow and get your ‘answers.’”

Lewis hesitated a moment, considering, before the sound of distant sirens made the decision for him. He looked back at the other three, taking in the scene for a moment. Vivi’s gentle gaze, Mystery’s untrusting glare, and Arthur’s pained stare. He let out a breath that he didn’t need and nodded. He saw Vivi smile before he teleported back to the mansion. The place where he had first seen everyone after his death and where they currently lived.

Lewis took a moment to look around the front entrance area before slowly floating overnight into the kitchen. The place where he went, in life, to help him clear his mind, and think over things for a while. He unfortunately made a ton of food because of his stress-cooking habit, but it got eaten relatively quickly. When in the kitchen, Lewis started to look in the cabinets and refrigerator for random ingredients. Picking up anything that looked helpful as he let his thoughts run wild.

Lewis was having trouble trying to figure out the “why” in everything. He knew that Arthur had pushed him away from the path of the ghost. He knew that Arthur gotten pretty badly injured from the fall that his actions caused. He knew that Arthur had a split second to make the decision, and did it almost _instinctively._ But he also knew that Arthur had been the one to _kill him._ Arthur had laughed as he watched Lewis fall. Arthur had killed him to get to Vivi, but from what he’s seen since he’d rejoined the group was that Arthur seemed to put _more_ space between himself and the blue-haired girl.

Lewis was clearly missing some piece to the puzzle, and could not figure out what it was. Every idea he had was quickly shot down when he realized he knew something that disproved it. He thought that Arthur killed him to get to Vivi, but the space between them proved otherwise. He thought that Arthur didn’t care for him, but his actions earlier showed that he was wrong. What he _did_ know was that he needed to talk to Arthur and figure out what happened and _why._

With that final thought, Lewis brought his full attention back to what he was currently cooking. There were a couple plates with sugar cookies shaped into peppers on the far right corner of the island counter, some plates of traditional meals that were served at his family restaurant, and one plate of assorted treats that he recognized as something the whole gang ate when relaxing together for movie nights. Lewis’ heart saddened at the memories that came with that realization. He let out a sigh and got to work on cleaning the kitchen and wrapping up the food to save for later.

By the time Lewis had everything cleaned, it was early in the afternoon the next day. He grabbed the phone Vivi had bought for him from the counter and saw that Vivi had texted and called him multiple times. He had been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn’t heard the phone go off or noticed how much time passed. Lewis opened his phone and listened to the voicemails that Vivi had left for him.

_‘Heeeyyy LewLew. So I just wanted to let you know that Arthur is gonna be fine. He needed some stitches and he’s not going to be able to walk for a while, but he’ll recover. His metal arm is busted so they took it off…...don’t think he’ll be too happy about that. Anyways call me!’_

_‘Oh gosh Lewis. Arthur is not doing super well….Not physically though! He’s just been having a lot of nightmares…...it’s just like after the cave but that was worse. He’s kinda delirious and mumbles your name from time to time? I don’t know. Please call me…’_

_‘Lewis? I’m kinda scared and worried right now. Arthur still isn’t awake but the doctors suspect that he won’t be up for another long while. It’s just…..he’s having nightmares Lew, and some of the things he’s saying aren’t fun to hear…..Please tell me you’ll visit soon….’_

All these messages only happened within the first couple hours of him being home. There were a lot more. Lewis found the most recent text and read it. It simply said that Arthur was awake and had at one point asked where Lewis was...this was sent around 30 minutes ago. Lewis quickly texted Vivi asking if it was safe for him to visit, because he needed answers and Vivi knew this, and if he had to pick up the van. Vivi responded almost immediately stating that yes, he did need to get the van, and he could visit.

Lewis quickly teleported back to the Winchester House to pick up the van. He started it up, and played the music loud enough to drown out any doubts as he drove to the hospital. Once there, he parked and texted Vivi, asking which room Arthur was in. A few seconds later his phone went off signalling Vivi’s response. _‘Room 402.’_ Lewis checked to make sure his human disguise was in place in the rear-view mirror before putting on his sunglasses to hide his eyes, and got out of the car. He quickly made his way inside and up to the floor Arthur’s room was on.

Vivi was waiting for him outside of Arthur’s room and waved at Lewis when she spotted him. Lewis gave a small smile that slowly disappeared when he took in Vivi’s appearance. She was slumped forward slightly as if something was weighing on her. Her eyes were red from what Lewis could only guess was crying. Her smile didn’t necessarily reach her eyes like normal. Overall she looked concerned and worried.

“Hey LewLew. The doctors had to kick me out because they needed to do a check up and the room was too small. How are you?” Vivi asked him.

Lewis noted the lack of Vivi’s normal excitement in her tone.

“My head is a little more clear but I need to ask Arthur somethings. Viv...where you up for the rest of the night?”

“Yeah. I wanted to be there when Arthur woke up…”

Lewis nodded in understanding. There was no use arguing with her now, but Lewis was determined to make her sleep as soon as they got home. Lewis went to continue the conversation but was cut off when the doctors stepped out.

“Everything looks good. He’ll need to stay here until his hip and spine heal, but he’ll be able to leave in about six weeks,” the doctor informed them both with a comforting smile, “And please Ms. Yukino, get some rest. Your friend will be fine.”

Vivi smiled and thanked the doctor before leading Lewis into the room. Lewis tensed when he looked at Arthur laying on the hospital bed. His metal arm was removed, and one side of his head was wrapped in bandages. There were a couple bruises on his face. every. All the other cuts and bruises were hidden by the hospital gown and bed sheets. Lewis noticed Arthur tensing as they made eye contact before he looked at Vivi for answers.

“Artie look! Lewis came to visit!” Vivi cheerily announced.

“I can see that Viv. Uhm...why though?” Arthur responded, as he looked back at Lewis.

Lewis winced at the scratchiness of the man’s voice before he answered, “To be honest, I… uhm,” he sighed, “I needed answers.”

“Oh..”

“Yeah…” Lewis moved to sit on a chair by Arthur’s bed, and didn’t miss the way the man flinched at the action. Lewis jumped slightly when he felt something brush his leg and looked down to see Mystery looking up at him from under the bed. He heard Vivi chuckle before she grabbed her own chair and sat next to Lewis.

“He wasn’t allowed in the hospital so we had to reason with the doctor to have him stay under the bed.” Vivi explained. “I’m gonna take a nap, and you two can figure out your problems,” she informed as she leaned forward to lay her head on her crossed arms, laying on the unoccupied space of Arthur’s bed.

There was silence in the room as they both waited until they heard Vivi’s quiet snores filling the silence. Lewis was starting to get a little nervous at the answers that lay ahead, but he forced himself to take a deep breath to help calm his nerves, then took off his sunglasses.

“Why did you push me out of the way Arthur?” he asked getting straight to the point.

“Oh...uh yeah. That,” he paused, stammering, “Well, I...I don’t really know? I mean you are - were! - are? - my friend, Lewis, and I -“ he drew in a deep breath as he stumbled over his words, “I guess I just got so used to acting where there’s danger that I forgot that you’re technically... _dead_.” Arthur trailed off and rubbed the back of his neck. He seemed to look anywhere but at Lewis, and there was a blush dusting his cheeks.

“Okay. Well -“ Lewis paused to consider his words, “Well if you _did_ kill me out of jealousy… I don’t think you would have done _that._ So what happened in the cave? I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around all of this.”

He could see Arthur tense at the question before he started to stutter out an explanation. Nothing was really connecting and Arthur had to keep restarting the story. His arm flailed somewhat, and he looked close to tears at the memory.

“Okay. Wait a second Arthur. First off, breathe. I don’t need to know everything right away.” Lewis interjected, cutting his ramble off. He watched as Arthur took a deep breath and focused on calming down. “Good. Now, did you purposefully push me?”

“No.”

“Explain.”

“There...there was a demon in there...he…” a deep breath “He took control of me and made me push you off.”

Lewis nodded in acknowledgment, “How was he able to possess you _exactly_?”

Arthur took a shaky breath and the blush that had previously disappeared, returned. “I...He took advantage of my loneliness. It’s just...you and Vivi are so happy together and I...I felt useless. Like I wasn’t needed. You’re smart and strong and brave. Vivi’s brave and loves all of this paranormal stuff and you two fit perfectly. And I was just _there..._ a burden….the scaredy cat who just gets in the way.”

Lewis’ eyes softened at the explanation. _How? How could he have believed that Arthur killed him?_ The man in front of him was in the hospital for protecting him. Like he always did. He couldn’t count how many times Arthur had gotten them out of trouble. Arthur couldn’t even kill a spider without breaking down or just making someone else kill it for him. Arthur had bought a handicapped hamster just so he could help the critter walk around again.

“I’m _so_ sorry Arthur.” Lewis said after a few moments.

“Huh?”

“I spent so _long_ blaming you for my death when it wasn’t even your fault…”

“Wait, wait. No. Lewis. It _is. I_ was the one who was too weak to keep the demon out.” Arthur said, quickly trying to tell Lewis that he was wrong - trying to _convince_ him that Arthur was still to blame. Lewis didn’t understand why Arthur was trying to keep him from forgiving him.

“Arthur… It is _not_ your fault. You hear me?” Lewis demanded.

All he did was nod as a flash of confusion and disbelief appear on his face.

“You are _not_ a burden. You are _not_ useless. You are always there to get Vivi and me out of trouble. You point out certain details we may have missed. You keep us from getting too invested with the paranormal. You remind us to take care of ourselves. You have to take care of yourself too, Arthur.” Lewis added the last bit as a side-note. He’d noticed the bags under Arthur’s eyes and the amount of weight he lost. “Arthur, you are _so necessary_ in this group and I don’t know what we would do without you. I’m sorry and… and I forgive you Arthur.”

Arthur’s had partially looked down at his lap, but his head now snapped up so that he could stare at Lewis in shock. Lewis could see the tears filling Arthur’s eyes as he processed the words. Lewis gave a small smile to Arthur and leaned forward to gently hug him. He whispered the same words again as Arthur sobbed onto his shoulder.

_“I forgive you.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Tumblr: https://acemistakes.tumblr.com/ because I have no other social media and I will go down with that hellsite....


End file.
